Warring States Odds

Who could unite China?


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Basically, what states have the best odds to unite China as the Zhou dynasty collapsed? Obviously Qin has a good shot, since they actually did do it, but thats boring. Chu's massive, as was Jin before it split up. I also added options for states that werent part of the Zhou dynasty, like Ba and Yue, as well as non-Chinese states, like the Xiong-nu.
 
Might have to be careful with the terminology... Yue and Ba weren't Han (and really, Chu was borderline Han - it's like saying the 18th Century Russia was French). In any case there wasn't really a 'Chinese' identity at the time.

And also it might be more useful to have a starting date for people to consider... the list at the beginning of the Spring and Autumn Period is going to be way different from the Warring States Period. Countries such as Lu, Chen, Cai, Wei, Shang etc. had a real shot at greatness at various points during the era.

Anyway, my list (in order of ranking) for the Warring States Period as a whole would have been:

1. Jin (Good position in the Yellow/Fen River Valleys)
2. Chu (Sheer size)
3. Qi (Rich lands)
4. Qin (So distant nobody bothered about them)
5. Zhao (Good position in the Fen River Valley)
6. Wei (Good position in the Yellow River valley)
 
There was no Han ethnicity until the Han united China. If you want an ethnic term, Huaxia would have to do. However, there certainly is a difference between the states bordering the states that were nominally part of the Zhou Empire, and those that were further out.

Also, I probably should have added Jin as an option, alongside Han, Wei, and Zhao.
 
Basically, what states have the best odds to unite China as the Zhou dynasty collapsed? Obviously Qin has a good shot, since they actually did do it, but thats boring. Chu's massive, as was Jin before it split up. I also added options for states that werent part of the Zhou dynasty, like Ba and Yue, as well as non-Chinese states, like the Xiong-nu.
The end of Jin is used as the convenient start date for the beginning of the Warring States. Therefore Jin can't be a Warring State contender. Also, the "Xiongnu" don't appear in the Warring States: it's thought that this is a Qin-era name for the Xianyun, unless the Xianyun are actually a related but different ethnic group, since the evidence either way is not so clear.

I would go with the four big states of the Warring States: Zhao, Qi, Chu, and Qin, without any order, as potential contenders. I think Zhao is the weakest of these, because it was born out of the Jin collapse while the other states have longer histories. So that leaves Qi, Chu, and Qin as likely unifiers.
 
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